


"The Adventure of the White Hart"

by Creamteasforever



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fatlock, Fluff, Food, Mystery, Pastoral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2058687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creamteasforever/pseuds/Creamteasforever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Fatlock romp in the English countryside. Can our gallant heroes avoid succumbing to the sweet siren call of inexhaustible culinary delights? Is the sweet old lady innkeeper actually a vicious criminal in disguise? Will Sherlock ever work out just what the crime he’s supposed to be investigating actually is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	"The Adventure of the White Hart"

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt by seven-lbs...well, you’ll recognise it all from the summary: “S & J take up residence at a B&B in the countryside, investigating a complicated case. They suspect the innkeeper is involved and might try to run, so they need to be in her presence as much as possible. Which involves taking every meal in the inn. And the inn has spectacular food, and very generous servings… They end up stuck there for weeks, which has certain… side effects?”
> 
> It sounds fluffy, but this tale of Sherlock and John adventuring at an old-fashioned English pub deep in the heart of Yorkshire ended up with a proper plot. And then some subplots, and an OC I rather like; I’ve grown very attached to Violet in the course of writing this and fully intend to import her into my other stories. Lots of food. 
> 
> (Postscript: see if you can spot the Agatha Christie reference. And the Jeremy Brett joke.)

Everywhere was snow, deep drifts of it – no mere powdering an inch or two thick. Snow had fallen all over England for the last four days, and up here at the top of the Yorkshire moors, the effect was stunning. The small stone building they were making for, the White Hart, was supposedly one of the loneliest pubs in the country, but had a view to make up for all that. Below the dark boundary of the tree line, clean white fields, marked out by the chequerboard boundaries so characteristic of the English countryside, stretched below for miles in every direction. John loved it.

“The air’s splendid, isn’t it?” he said happily to his companion. He’d opened the window of their rented Mini Cooper to appreciate it, breathing in a wind so fine and bracing it seemed to go straight to the bottom of your lungs. Wonderful feeling. 

Sherlock, huddled in his coat and scarf, was busily negotiating the twisty roads and steep slopes. Sulking outrageously about it too, in John’s opinion. 

“It’s also bitterly cold, so the pub will be freezing. Wood fires, remember? Tourist trap, enjoy-your-stay-in-Victoriana nonsense? This will not be a weekend for bodily comforts.”

“If you’re going to be so uncharitable about it, why are we even here?”

“Because one of the least tedious of my university classmates has offered me a professional challenge. Or a bet, if you like. Violet Musgrave works for her aunt, one Mrs Hustard, who owns and runs the White Hart. Violet assures me that there’s a scam involved here somewhere and wants my help proving it, but has enough of a sense of humour to suggest I work out what it is for myself. If I don’t figure it out before the last day I have to pay triple on the bill.”

“Supposing you don’t?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’d be surprised if it took me more than twenty-four hours. There can’t be much to investigate about a business with two employees and no neighbours.”

“Right. So, my role in all this?”

Sherlock glanced away from the road towards him for a moment. “Don’t worry about the case. Think of it as a vacation for my blogger. Mrs Hustard is famed for her cooking, you’ll enjoy yourself. And you enjoy the glories of the English countryside far more than I do.”

“I don’t remember expressing any particular fondness for it. I mean -”

“But no particular dislike, which puts you ahead of my own position. Now do stop thinking about all this. We’re supposed to be meeting the suspect shortly, and it’ll be a little awkward if you’re brimming over with leading questions. She will be feeding us for the next few days, you know, we don’t wish to put her off just yet.”

They reached the pub a few minutes later. The old grey stone building was squat and weathered, tucked into the smallest of hollows scooped out to protect the structure. No swinging sign, but the outline of a horned deer had been roughly painted onto the wall, with whitewash. John realised that the summit itself was only a little distance higher up; he was tempted to climb up to it, but Sherlock was impatiently tugging his arm and leading him inside.

It was pleasant enough there. The room was small, but had the proper and expected bar with the usual colourful selection of bottles, some engravings and mirrors on the walls between well-stocked bookcases. The blaze in the perfectly enormous fireplace, with a hearth that linked this room with the kitchen and looked big enough to roast a cow, warmed the air. Sherlock smiled blissfully at it and settled into a soft blue armchair set comfortably in front of it, blowing on his hands and unwinding his scarf.

“It wasn’t that cold,” John muttered, then applied himself to the barmaid, trying to memorise her appearance the way Sherlock always insisted he did. Dark, tightly curled hair, height about halfway between his and Sherlock’s, a face that was sturdy rather than conventionally pretty. She wore an unobtrusive dark dress that he imagined wasn’t period, but didn’t clash too much with the surroundings. 

“Miss Musgrave?”

“Or Violet, if you like. I take it you’re Sherlock’s new partner in crime?”

“I – uh…suppose so, yes.”

“You’re bashful. I’d have thought he’d like someone with a touch more spirit. It’s good when he’s not the only assertive one in the room.”

“It does, actually, help investigations if he’s the rude one. I take it you knew him before his detective days?” He wasn’t actually sure about that; Sherlock hadn’t elaborated on how well he’d known the woman.

“Oh, he didn’t mention it? I helped investigate a couple of his first cases. Vampire squids. Poor little things, it was awful seeing them kept in those tiny fish tanks.” 

“Vampire…squid…” John repeated slowly.

She drummed her fingers impatiently. “Fortunately, the two of us were able to solve the mystery before they’d come to any real harm. Now, are you going to order anything?”

“Oh! Right. Just an ale, then. Your local.”

“We can’t make it on site. It’s just myself and auntie here, you know. Be nice to have a couple more people to help out, but it’s so hard to find anyone who wants to work up here in the back of beyond.”

“Mulled wine for me,” Sherlock called. “Or anything that’s hot, really. Coffee would do.”

“Mulled wine for the pair of you, then. Unless you’re going to ask for something else?” This with an air of finality.

“Right. Scotch for me, then,” John said with much decisiveness. “Neat.”

Violet poured out a shot for him, then emptied half a bottle of port into a much-loved saucepan, added spicing from a fragrant-smelling jar and squeezed a lemon into it. She placed it upon the fireplace grill for a few minutes of gentle stirring. John took his drink and nestled down into the brown armchair opposite Sherlock’s, enjoying the softness of the cushion; he must have sunk down a full three inches.

The inner door opened, and a cheerful older lady bustled in. John’s first impression was that she looked a little like Mrs Hudson, then blinked; where their landlady had short, light-coloured hair, this woman’s curls were long and iron grey, with a ruddier face and plump figure. It was just that she bore herself with much the same air, a goddess of domesticity and wry good humour. The floury apron and cotton-print dress she wore added to the effect.

“Hullo, dears, are you Sherlock and John? Violet told me you were coming, I’ve been busy cooking and preparing the guest room for you. Poor things, you must be cold and hungry after that long drive up.”

“Oh, we’re really fine, Mrs Hustard,” John said smiling. “It was a beautiful day, I’ve never seen this part of the country before. Really lovely, it is.”

“Be that as it may, you ought to have a good warming supper. I’ll just lay out a few things on the sideboard for you. Violet, do come and lend a hand, my dear?”

Mrs Hustard’s idea of “a few things” astonished John. Three types of birds, roast beef, and an entire joint of ham neatly sliced. Some sort of mayonnaise salad. Pie. Jellies, pastries, fruit. A golden sponge cake that had never dreamed of a cake mix or a blender. And plenty of bread to spread the things on. Eagerly, he slathered some pate over the rusks; the rich, fatty taste had been given a kick with ginger and clover. 

“What’s this?”

“Tongue,” Sherlock said casually. 

John tried very hard not to spit out the mouthful.

The rest was delicious, though; Mrs Hustard laughingly passed it off as her “secret ingredient” when he asked how she’d made anything so toothsome. Whatever the detective’s usual habits, John couldn’t fathom why Sherlock was only picking at the food. It might just have been he was too busy using his mouth for chatting instead. Violet and her aunt were well-read and intelligent, but with almost no knowledge of current events (“tell the truth, I’ve not seen a television in fifteen years,” Violet remarked) and therefore knew next to nothing about Sherlock’s escapades. The detective could therefore rather spread himself on the discussion if not the cuisine, describing his last few cases with a gory enthusiasm that evidently appealed to his listeners.

Sherlock had to stop eventually to sip at the mulled wine, though, which left John an opening for a subject besides his roommate. He was not a little curious. “So how did you end up opening a pub up here?”

“Oh, it was just lucky, really,” Mrs Hustard explained. “I’d been left some money from a great-aunt of mine…quite a lot of money, in fact. Enough to indulge my interests for the rest of my life, and that was just living a nice quiet life out here. People may think you’re crazy for keeping a Victorian pub that nobody ever visits, but at least they’ll accept it as a sort of joke on the tourists. It’s much trickier trying to explain that you simply prefer living this way.”

“Which I’ll agree made sense for you, but not for Violet here,” Sherlock said. “She could have had a career with me, but no, she buries herself here in Yorkshire instead.”

“It seemed like the best thing for me,” Violet said, swiping the last of the raspberry tarts and chewing at it contentedly. “Though I suppose I might come up to London some time. Just to see how you’re getting on.”

“It’ll be an experience for you, I’ve come a long way since when you knew me. Scotland Yard dances at my tune these days.” The detective’s usual sang-froid felt out of place in this quiet place, to John, but then that was Sherlock for you. The doctor munched on pie and watched intently as Violet pressed for further details, asking all the right questions, the ones he’d have made in her position. Once she guessed the criminal in a case before Sherlock had even finished laying out the details; he looked startled for a moment, then broke out into a chuckle.

“Right as always. Your talents are wasted up here.”

“It’s good to know what you enjoy in life. You like detection. I like my unfashionably old pursuits. One of these days, people are going to want to know how to milk cows by hand and repair a foot-pedal sewing machine again.”

“She’s always had these peculiar ideas about the impending downfall of civilisation and the preservation of handicrafts as the only hope for the future. Don’t mind her, John.”

“He’s always had these peculiar ideas about how murders make for an amusing and edifying topic of conversation. Don’t mind him.”

John took a last bite of jelly and gulped down his forgotten scotch, feeling pleasantly full. He had an idea he’d better steer the detective somewhere quiet and let him recuperate from the journey before a quarrel started. “Well, I’m sure she keeps a nice pub. Can we have a look at the rooms?”

“No trouble.” Mrs Hustard rose and opened a door. “There you are, dears.”

The two of them looked through. Gold-patterned wallpaper, dark hardwood flooring dotted with braided rugs. The furnishings were sparse but solid; two tables topped with basins and pitchers, a wardrobe that smelt of mothballs, one massive four-poster that had a full complement of curtains and looked as though it’d been nailed down. There was a blue settee at its foot.

“So where’s the connecting door?” Sherlock asked. He was gazing around the room as though it was taking him a particularly long time to ascertain its details.

“The connecting door?”

“The connecting door to the other room. We do have adjoining rooms, don’t we?”

“Oh, dear, didn’t Violet tell you? We only have the one room for visitors. It’s not a very big pub, I’m afraid. We’d make much more money if we had another building, people don’t like to come up here because it’s such a very long walk.”

“No problem,” John said quickly. “There’s a sofa right here, we can take it in turns. We’re roommates in London, it won’t be any problem.”

Mrs Hustard beamed, saying she hoped they’d be very happy, and helped John transfer some of the blankets and pillows to the sofa. Sherlock lingered by the door, looked as though he was struggling not to say something and started a syllable, then bit off the comment.

“I’ll just leave you alone to unpack and such like, then. You can come by the kitchen if you want anything else to eat. I know it was only a scratch meal, but I’ll put together something properly special tomorrow.”

Sherlock snorted as she left.

“Typical Violet. She did have an irritating fondness for playing practical jokes. I should have realised that when she said they had a guest room, she meant exactly that.” He flumped down on the four-poster. “What a ridiculous bed. How many blankets and pillows have been piled onto this mattress, I wonder.”

“They can’t have very much money if this is their only one.” John settled down on the exceptionally, observing a few stray feathers poking from its cushions. It looked as if everything soft in the house was filled with down.

“It’s difficult to make assumptions here, when there’s no clues to anything later than 1910 in the building, but I’d expect this pub earns next to nothing. Mrs Hustard always was an odd duck; she’d get on well enough with anyone one-on-one but would walk out of any room with more than six people in it.” His face softened. “I rather liked her for that. It’s not everyone who knows exactly what she wants from life.”

“And Violet?”

“Oh, I meant what I said about her talent. She took a degree in history while I was studying chemistry, her advisors were suggesting graduate school. It did look for a while there as if we might go into detective work together, but then her aunt bought this place and she’s been here ever since. I’ve not seen her since school, it was Molly who ran into her and put us in touch again. Can’t imagine what Molly was doing in this part of the country. I suppose she must have relations or something in the area.”

John still felt vaguely disoriented by the casual remark about Sherlock solving crimes with someone else, but then Sherlock had had a life before he’d come along. It wasn’t that different from his friend getting help from Lestrade, say. Besides which…“Well, she certainly seems nice enough.”

Sherlock glanced at him. “Not my type, John. Wasn’t then and isn’t now. Don’t start.”

Well, so much for that idea, John thought with an internal sigh. He was “Where’s the sockets? I want to plug my computer in.”

“No electricity here, John. No technology. You might as well leave your computer in the car.”

“Nothing? How do they keep anything cold?”

“Icebox, Molly said. In weather like this it’ll keep the meat more than cold enough, don’t worry about that. They’ll have a good selection of food. I told Violet to go all out on the purchases for our visit.”

It was on the tip of John’s tongue to ask why, and apparently, Sherlock could read it on his features.

“I already told you. Treat for my blogger.” A furtive expression of affection crept over his face.

In his own way, John guessed, Sherlock was trying to be nice by doing several things that he would have never, ever contemplated for his own enjoyment but which he knew John would appreciate. It was honestly touching.

“I suppose we’ll have to go to bed at night, or use candles or something?”

Sherlock pointed at a set of brackets screwed over the bed. “Fresh beeswax, evidently from a candle, probably made themselves. Or you could read by the fire instead. It’s kept burning at night.”

“How would you even know that?”

“No matches or flint in sight, which means they don’t rekindle it very often.” Sherlock removed his coat and removed a book from the pocket. “In the meantime, I have the details of several hundred banknotes from various countries I’ve been meaning to memorize for a while. Go on and enjoy yourself, I’m sure you’ll find talking to them a very interesting experience. You can make my excuses for me. This will go more smoothly if Mrs Hustard likes at least one of us.”

John did indeed make the excuses, and amused himself for the rest of the day being shown around the property by Violet. The pub was a neat square of four rooms, with the main room the only one most visitors would see – behind it was the kitchen, arrayed with that huge hearth, a couple of ovens and a massive array of cooking utensils. Mrs Hustard explained that yes, the fire never did go out, as she slept in the kitchen to keep an eye on it; there was a small cot in the corner rigged up in the corner for her, and the kitchen dresser held linens. At least they wouldn’t freeze, John thought, and he did feel better about that fireplace once he saw the tinder box and the water bucket.

Violet’s bedroom shared a wall with the guest room, but she didn’t offer to show that to John, so they went outside. The snow buried any sign of what was apparently an extensive vegetable patch, but sheltered behind the house was the shed, with a cow, two goats and a flock of chickens and ducks nestled inside.

“Well, aren’t these sweet.” He fluffed. “What are they called?”

Violet shrugged. “Auntie invents new names whenever visitors ask, but to tell the truth we don’t worry about such things. We eat them, after all. I can show you the spot out back where I cut their heads off with my hatchet.” She pulled three eggs out of the hay. “This is good. Egg and soldiers for breakfast tomorrow, if I can find one more.”

John, hands full of a hen’s glossy brown feathers, tried not to let his jolt of anxiety startle the bird. “You’re rather cool, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sentimental. This isn’t all an affectation, this is my life. That being said, check the names carved into the stalls.”

“Gladstone and Disraeli,” John read. “And you’ve named the cow Vicki.”

“They’re all girls. It gives the tourists a good laugh. Here.” She dropped the eggs into a woven basket and took a tin pail hung over the door, then sat down and began milking Vicki. “If you can carry those in for auntie when we’re done, I’ll take the pail.”

John searched the straw and was rewarded with the slight bluish-tint of one more duck egg before Violet had finished; she congratulated him and offered a sip of the milk. Tentatively, he tasted the liquid – as a physician he didn’t feel entirely comfortable with raw milk, never mind that he was drinking it straight from a bucket. Then too, it’d be warm having just come from the cow, which indeed it was.

But the flavour was rich, and far creamier than any milk he’d ever drunk before. It gave him a shivery, naughty feeling, as though he was still six again and methodically eating all the marmalade out of a jar with a spoon. The scolding on that occasion had been emphatic, but his parents had allowed him to finish off the treat over the next few weeks. “It’s not as if anyone else wants to eat out of it now,” Harry had said with a sniff.

Violet was looking at him. “Thinking of something?”

John laughed. “No. Nothing, really. Childhood escapades.”

They walked back to the house and he begged a glass off of Mrs Hustard for Sherlock; he got it, along with a plate of digestives. John carried his spoils into the bedroom, to find his companion still flipping through his book, in exactly the same position.

“Enjoy yourself, then? You left your phone behind. Text from Molly, that’s all.”

“Sherlock. My phone ought to be private.”

“It might have been a life or death situation. There’s no knowing.”

“Even if it had been, how much would we be able to do about given that we’re up here away in the back of beyond right now?”

Sherlock tutted. “Not the point, John. And since Molly’s writing you messages in code, you’re apparently willing to accept the possibility that I’m checking your phone on occasion. She asked how the bet was going. Something to do with me, I take it?”

John regarded him evenly. “Not everything has to revolve around you, Sherlock. Something very trivial is all.”

“Anything can assume the most tremendous importance in the correct context. Molly is a busy woman, she wouldn’t have just sent you that text unless it meant something important. I am the most obvious causal link between you two.”

“I’ll let your amazing powers of deduction work out what it was, then,” John said, with a smile. “While you’re preoccupied with that, I’ll go outside and call her back. No fair listening in, that’d be cheating.”

The temperature was bitterly cold. He returned to the shed to take the call, stroking the ducks as he talked.

“Hello, Molly. How’s it going?”

“I was calling to ask you that, actually. Enjoying the pub, then? Any progress with Sherlock?”

“You were right, Molly, she is almost perfect. A tad obnoxious but clever, and it seems they solved mysteries together at university. Not sure how nice she is.”

“Nice enough isn’t good enough, John. We’re quite nice, and that’s obviously hasn’t been enough for Sherlock. If anything I think it’ll take someone genuinely strange, someone genuinely out there, to attract his attention. If Jim wasn’t dating me I might have introduced them myself, I think they’d get along really well together.”

“Well, there are two snags. For one, he says he’s not interested.”

“That could be excellent. At least he’s acknowledging the possibility, which is more than we’ve persuaded him to do before.”

“It always surprises me how chipper you are for someone who works in a morgue.”

“It always surprises me that you can stay cheerful having people’s lives in your hands. I’m quite happy just dealing with the dead ones.”

“Erm. Hadn’t thought of that in quite that fashion.”

“There you go then. So, how’s the glorious countryside? Can’t stand it myself.”

“Hang on. What were you doing here, then? You can’t have arrived out here just by accident, this is miles away from anywhere.”

There was a pause. “I was…in the area, all right? I’d rather not talk about it.”

“All right, I won’t pry. The other problem is that I’m not sure she could be persuaded to leave here for good, though she’s all but promised to come down to London. I’m going to have to work for this twenty quid, won’t I?”

He could hear a door creak; someone must have entered the lab. “Oh, hello Gregory,” Molloy called. “Yes, I expect you will. John, it sounds like you’re basically settled, then? Have fun. Good luck with Sherlock.”

John went back to the house and found Sherlock asleep with the book spread on his chest, huddled under the blankets. The luggage was all put away in a corner, maybe as an apology. The biscuits were untouched but the glass was empty. Maybe warm milk did have a soporific effect on the detective? He made a mental note to try that out the next time Sherlock was complaining of insomnia.

He opened the door, grabbed a book off the shelves at random, and called out very softly “Sherlock’s gone to sleep. I’ll probably go to bed myself soon, it was a long day. Good night.”

“Good night, dear,” the two women called back in unison. John smiled and settled down on the sofa for an evening of biscuits and Thomas Hughes. A little dry, but essentially good. 

 

Perhaps to make up for his uncommunicativeness the first day, for the next few Sherlock inspected everything eagerly. Long before John was in any mood to awaken, he’d been up and helping Mrs Hustard cook (“ever so nice he was with the kneading, saved me so much trouble”). John casually mentioned finding the duck’s egg, and was secretly tickled when Violet said she’d marked it especially.

“I assume you’ll want to eat it yourself? Most visitors do.”

“No,” he found himself saying. “Give it to Sherlock, I think he’d like that.”

The detective gave him a quizzical look but was busy being given instructions in the correct preparation of kidneys; he turned his attention back to that.

They breakfasted on the eggs and soldiers, along with buttered kippers, a few different kinds of sausage, what remained of the tongue and hot buttered muffins. John was starting to wonder if they’d be expected to eat this heavily at every meal.

He settled down in the blue armchair near the fire with “Tom Brown at Oxford”, while Mrs Hustard churned the remains of the milk into butter and hummed as she worked. Snatches of conversation drifted into his conversation every so often. Apparently there was a cellar one reached through a trap door in the kitchen, where the food stores and the firewood were kept. John considered how dark and mysterious it must be down there, with only a candle to light your way, and shivered pleasurably. Something about this house really did make you feel like a child again. 

Another time, he caught a hint of a quarrel.

“You realise I’ll have to take a look in your room to investigate properly. It’s fully a quarter of the house and I’ve not even had a glance at it so far.”

“Pish! What an ungentlemanly suggestion.”

“You’re forgetting I’m a detective. How socially acceptable would a detective unattached to the police have been in Victorian times, may I ask you? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t regard it as strictly necessary.”

“I suppose you’ll ask to look through all my shifts, while you’re at it.”

“If it seems necessary. I must know whether your aunt is hiding any evidence, and somewhere that’s socially unthinkable to leave it would be an ideal place…”

“Maybe I should look through all your luggage too. Turnabout is fair play and all that.”

“By all means. Maybe you can find my deerstalker hat while we’re at it, I’d like to have some sort of head covering if we’re going out into weather like that.”

John closed his book, pondered that it hadn’t even been as good as the first Tom Brown story, and switched over to Raffles. Mischievous thief. John was amused by him, but had always found himself preferring Bunny. Glories of the English country aside, in weather like this a seat by a warm fire seemed far preferable.

Luncheon was a mixed grill, with mutton chops and other assorted meats. John delved into the tomato and mushrooms with relish; he was relieved that there was some veg on the premises after all. Sherlock was distracted into eating by Mrs Hustard telling the tale of a local mystery; forkfuls disappeared as he listened avidly to the tale of the protesting suspect, the cunning local who’d put two and two together, and the dramatic unmask of the real killer – the local magistrate!

“And I’ve plenty more stories where that came from. One about this very pub in fact, but that’s best saved for a dark stormy night, the kind that’s best.”

“I’m outnumbered by all you murder-lovers,” Violet said, mock-tragically. “Might be more tonight, then. I had a look outside and there’s an east wind blowing. Cold enough for more snow tonight.”

“Sounds all right to me,” John said. “I found a copy of Hippocrates in the Latin. Puzzling out what it means could probably take me the rest of a week.”

“Along with a Latin dic, then?” Sherlock murmured. Both his companions glared at him. 

“Violet and I are going off to have a look at the icehouse and the well. Apparently it’s about half a mile down the hill, and in this snow it may take a while.”

“Wouldn’t it have made sense to have built the house by the well?”

Violet tsked. “It would have, and there’s been more than one summer day when I’ve cursed the builder, but the original builder wasn’t thinking of practicalities. Just that view.”

John pondered the idea of having to fetch every drop of water he wanted to wash with or drink for a kilometer. As absurd as his own life with Sherlock was, it seemed relaxingly simple by comparison.

They dined that night on a huge, doughy slab of Yorkshire pudding, filled with the drippings of the joint that had roasted on top of it. John had never considered himself much a fan of Yorkshire pud, but cooked this ways it was irresistible. Some sprouts and chestnuts on the side, with roasted potatoes and an onion gravy to drown it all in. Then to follow, the usual array of desserts. John abandoned caution to the winds and attacked the appealing food voraciously, observing to his delight that Sherlock was doing the same. Violet carried the conversation this evening, telling anecdotes she’d found out of old novels. A few of them were decidedly blue; John glanced at Mrs Hustard the first few times, but the old woman laughed at them just as heartily. 

After they retired to their rooms for the night – John pouncing on the bed before Sherlock reached it, as switching off every night seemed the only fair way to handle matters. He had his medical textbook and spent a happy few hours plugging away at that, losing himself in tracing the ancient, ever so earnest texts.

Eventually the clock struck one. 

“Do you want a snack, Sherlock?”

“Don’t be silly.” The detective was absently paging through a copy of “Our Mutual Friend”, occasionally frowning at an especially florid bit of prose, which – this being Dickens – happened about every other page. “We’ve just eaten.”

“It’s been a couple of hours since tea now. And your stomach’s distracting. Whenever I get to a particularly lyrical part of the text it growls and takes me out of the swing of it.”

“What?” Sherlock put the book down and felt his stomach, then glared at John as if this was all his fault. 

“Well, I suppose you’re right. Apparently I’m famished and wasn’t paying attention.”

“It happens. Take someone who hasn’t eaten much lately, give them a couple of good meals, and it’s surprising how fast they regain a normal appetite.”

Sherlock was still scowling. “One of the reasons I avoid the sorts of regular eating schedules you keep pushing on me. It’ll go away eventually.”

“Look, no, all right? I’d like to go to sleep soon too, but obviously you’re going to have to be fed first for that to happen. You’re hungry, is all. You ought to eat something.”

“What are you proposing we do? Mrs Hustard sleeps in the kitchen. It’d be unreasonable to wake her up at this hour.”

“She might still be awake. And if not, so what?”

“Fine.” Sherlock returned to his book. “If you insist on silly escapades, I will eat whatever you insist on bringing back. Can’t say fairer than that, I should hope.”

John quietly padded out and into the main room, making his way by the glow of the embers. He glanced at the bar, but the place was too neatly organized for that: no comestibles there. Silently he crept into the kitchen, blessing whichever of the women saw fit to keep their doors oiled to open without the slightest creak. Mrs Hustard was snoring on her cot, kitty corner away from him. There was a basket of muffins laid out on the hefty oak table she used for a work surface, obviously meant for breakfast tomorrow. 

He took the basket under his arm, hesitated, and opened the preserves cupboard. This wasn’t quite as well oiled, or else was more used; it squeaked, and John froze, his heart losing a beat in fear. He’d quite lost track of the proper proportions of the situation – for a moment it seemed to take on the import of one of their cases, with an empty Sherlock waiting anxiously to know whether John had succeeded in the mission, or if he’d have to go hungry that night instead. 

Then Mrs Hustard delivered herself of another snore, and he calmed, forcing himself not to breathe out a sigh of relief. In the dark it was hard to see the jam jars labels, but he procured one, shut the cupboard door quite slowly, and slipped back out again with the goodies.

“Oh, thanks for these,” Sherlock said absently as a basket of warm muffins was placed in his lap. He looked up as John started to laugh. “What is it?”

“Old joke. You wouldn’t understand.”

He was turning over a jar of orange marmalade in his hand.

 

Life continued like that for much of the rest of the week. John stayed by the fire, interspersing his light reading with the odd potboiler every so often. He also helped out in the kitchen; Mrs Hustard was only too happy to show off her tricks and treats. Aside from several recipe books of her own (“and I’ve tried every dish in them at least once, though it has taken me years”), she had a strong inventive bent herself. They tested out any number of combinations; “what happens if we make sausage rolls with bacon instead?”; “what bread goes the best with almond soup?”; she had a selection of tiny bread pans, about the size of John’s fist, just for testing dough recipes.

He often carried in treats for Sherlock, who was still busily searching for evidence of untoward doings. The man had brought along an old-fashioned magnifying glass which he was using to inspect the entire building in detail – “Seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”

John looked at Sherlock, still clad in the deerstalker he wore for going outside, and admitted that it did.

He and Violet were spending a good deal of time tramping across the countryside, and John was still hoping something might come of it if the two were allowed to spend some time together. They argued frequently, but always in a playful fashion. It wasn’t utterly impossible. He and Molly did, sincerely, want the man to find someone who he could be comfortable with – Sherlock had been through a lot, and they wanted him to be happy. The Victorian lifestyle-country mouse aspect probably put the kybosh on a relationship, but maybe that would appeal to Sherlock more. John could imagine the man’s psychology accepting the idea of a relationship as long as it didn’t have to be a regular performance, guaranteed not to interfere with any of his cases. Violet evidently wasn’t much given to frequent passions; maybe this sort of connection would suit the pair of them better than anything more concrete. He wouldn’t care for it himself – how could it be that two lovers would want to only see each other occasionally, not want to take comfort in each other’s existence each day – but nothing was impossible. 

Towards the end of the week, he wandered into the bedroom with a tray of pork pies in a selection of different sizes, from thimble-sized nubbins to thin pastry dumplings to full-sized pies. The gravy was made with drippings again, and flavoured with Marmite among other good things. John had queried the familiar black-and-yellow bottle; Mrs Hustard had pointed out that it’d had been invented the year after Victoria’s death, and she didn’t mind stretching a point for Edwardian foodstuffs, especially for absolute neccesities of life. 

Sherlock was on the settee with a copy of the Sun stretched out over his face. John settled down on the bed and tucked a cup of coffee into the detective’s hand; softening him up with caffeine before plying him with snacks was proving a successful tactic to get him to eat. 

“So, how’s that mystery going? The one that we’re supposed to be investigating? Or you are, anyway.”

“It could be spying,” came the somewhat muffled reply. Sherlock sat up, spilled papers everywhere, and brandished the tabloid at him.

“The most recent newspaper for at least thirty miles and it’s two years out of date. They can’t be that out of touch. I’ve already gone through all the articles, solved a minor case that I’ll contact Lestrade about later, and identified a possible article that may or may not be evidence of a secret encoded message meant for this establishment only. What have you been up to?”

“Watching Mrs Hustard. You know, she told me the other day that she uses any newspapers her visitors leave to feed the fire? In small quantities, apparently, otherwise the kitchen fills with ash. I think that’s the one they keep in case the fire does ever go out.”

“Well, there goes that idea then,” Sherlock grumbled. Then he brightened. “Of course, she would say that. I needn’t give up hope just yet.”

“So you still think the woman’s capable of anything nefarious? Sherlock, I’m really not seeing it. She’s kind, well-meaning if a little eccentric, and I just don’t think it’s in her.”

“Evidence of an especial deep-cover agent, perhaps!” He drank thirstily from the coffee and bit into one of the pies. “These are good. Your cooking’s improving.”

“I have a good tutor.”

“Oh, no denying she’s a marvelous chef. I just want to know what else she might be aside from that.”

John shook his head. There was no talking sense into the detective when he was on the prowl.

 

Sherlock might have forced the issue the penultimate day – John could see he was chafing, frustrated at having taken this long for what should have been a simple case – but something else happened. He was shaken awake that morning, by a seemingly frantic Sherlock.

“John? John? For heaven’s sake, do wake up, would you?”

John blearily sat up in the bed and looked around the room; it was still dark. The only light came from the candleholder placed on the table.

“What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock, I checked by the clock. We’ve been snowed in. I can’t even get the door open to look outside.”

John jumped out of bed, marveling at how much warmer it felt this morning – maybe the snow was having an insulating effect – and dashed over to the window. Sherlock had already opened the shutters; they were solidly caked full of snow.

Violet and Mrs Hustard were most sympathetic, explaining that winter storms sometimes trapped them for a while but rarely this quickly. There was a window in the kitchen that could be used as an emergency exit; Violet clambered through it with some difficulty, to dig her way to the shed so as to feed and water the livestock. The snow, she said, wasn’t that high – only six feet or so, which given how much they’d had lately wasn’t a surprise – but certainly, they’d be isolated for at least another week or so even if a thaw came right away. 

John had long since turned off his phone to save the charge, pointing out that with no way to recharge them they needed to conserve the power for a real emergency. Sherlock had burned through his mobile’s long since and tried to get out to the car to recharge, but ran up against an unexpected difficulty; the small-set window just wasn’t big enough for him to get through, even with the help of a boost, John striving to prop up his friend’s weight, and Violet helping him on the other side, his waist got jammed and simply wouldn’t go any further. Mrs Hustard, practical as always, applied lard to the frame and squeezed him back inside.

“No more of that in my kitchen, now. You’ve let the draft in something terrible.”

“There must be some way to open the door in an emergency,” Sherlock said grumpily. “This is a safety hazard. And this shirt of mine’s completely spoilt.”

“There is,” Violet called back. “I go around to the other side of the house and dig my way down to the door. I was going to suggest that, but you’re always so impatient.”

Sherlock looked most frustrated. John hastily excused himself, so the man wouldn’t see his amusement.

Violet did dig down to the door, and eventually, Sherlock did get through to someone at the local rescue authorities, only to be told that they had other priorities just now. “There’s a lot of stranded motorists, without food or water. You’re in the White Hart? Just sit tight then, it’s more comfortable than anywhere we could put you right now. Say hullo to Mrs Hustard for me, would you? Tell her I’ll be in for a drop when this is all over.”

“Oh, that lovely Mr Haddock, was it?” Mrs Hustard squealed happily. “Such a naughty sense of humour he has. Would you know it, I’ve caught him trying to smuggle sweets in here?” Her voice sank. “Modern sweets. It’d be all right if they were liquorices or something like.”

So there wasn’t, really, anything to do for what turned out to be the next nine days except sit and eat. John abandoned the Latin translations in favour of the warm kitchen, helping to keep the fire stoked. Mrs Hustard was keen on this, calling them to ask for help with a solemn look on her face.

“Dears, there is one very important matter. Now, as you understand, we keep a good amount of food in the house, to feed visitors.”

“A lot of food in the house,” Violet piped up. “You could feed an army for a year on what we have in the cellar. I mean, there’s a thirty-pound sack down there’s pure sugar.”

“Yes, that’s true. Always useful to be prepared. But you see, with no one but us four to eat it all I’m going to have a lot of the food going to waste, and I hate to think of such a thing. If you two would help me and Violet eat our way through it all, we really would be much obliged.”

“It’s the least we can do to help,” John said chivalrously. “I’m sure Sherlock won’t mind.” He tapped Sherlock’s foot with his own, as hard as he dared. The detective started.

“Oh. Yes. Whatever John said, most certainly.” His eyes glazed over; clearly he wasn’t paying attention. John guessed the enforced solitude had dismayed him past the point of being able to comfortably contemplate anything.

So they all indulged freely, even Sherlock, who tried valiantly to ward off the boredom of complete isolation by following Mrs Hustard around and observing her every move. John observed that the more he hung around, asking probing questions, the more his face fell. There just wasn’t room in the woman for anything untoward.

“Just a lot of recipes for goose grease and cakes and I know not what else, as she’d say” Sherlock complained bitterly. “How could anyone be so obsessed with food?”

By day fourteen, the temperature was finally rising. Violet promised they’d be able to leave tomorrow; even if it started storming again, it’d be rain and that would help clear the snow away all the faster.

“Good I am going out of my mind with boredom,” Sherlock said miserably. “There is nothing to do in the benighted pub. We haven’t even got the telly.”

“You could read,” John suggested.

“A library of two bookcases, many of which I’d already read before coming here, and the rest of which I’ve now finished. Even the Just So stories. You know I’m not the sort of person who can enjoy rereading anything. Literally the most interesting thing I have had cause to ponder today is what sort of food we’re likely to have for tea. Or dinner or supper or whatever it is you’d call this indefinite, continual grazing we seem to be carrying on with.”

“She’s baking the rest of the sausage into rolls. Mrs. Hustard said so before breakfast.”

Sherlock uttered a plaintive cry. “Well. There goes my last chance for even the mildest speculation today.”

“Cheer up. There’s a special dessert she’s making too. You can have fun guessing what it is.”

“Pudding?”

“No.”

“More pudding?”

“Still no.”

“I simply cannot be bothered. Fetch it and I’ll put it into my mouth mindlessly. Judging by the actions of everyone around me, I’m an automaton whose only purpose is to act as a receptacle for assorted foodstuffs.”

“Sherlock, that’s not exactly fair.”

“They let themselves in for this life, and for whatever reason you seem entirely comfortable with it. I’m just so frustrated. And bored.”

John tiptoed out and returned with some sardines on toast, bedecked with some Worcestershire sauce. Sherlock devoured them without paying the slightest attention, spilling crumbs everywhere.

Something about the image appealed to John. 

 

The next day, when he was woken up by Sherlock shaking him again, John feared for a moment that it’d snowed again; then he saw clear blue sky through the window. Thank goodness. They could go home today.

“John! John? Wake up. I’ve discovered the crime. It’s been staring me in the face all along, I can’t imagine how I didn’t work it out sooner.”

“Really? What is it?”

“You know that whenever you try to ask Mrs Hustard what it is she puts in her cooking, she insists it’s that secret ingredient of hers?”

“Sherlock, I’m pretty sure that was a joke. She hasn’t told me about any secret ingredient and my jam tarts are almost as good as hers now. What about it?”

“It’s obviously some type of appetite stimulant. She’s gained her reputation as a cook through drugging her customers into delirious, ravenous consumption. Just look at us.” He yanked John up off the sofa and steered him over to the wardrobe’s mirrored door. “Look at me. I’m at least fifteen pounds heavier than I was when we arrived. You wouldn’t think it’d be possible to put on so much weight while snowbound, would you?”

John carefully examined the offered reflection – it wasn’t that interesting, he looked like himself only significantly heavier - then the real figure standing next to him. He placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and moved down, stopping at the noticeably softer and larger belly. No denying it; weight on the man went straight to his waist. Maybe a touch of puffiness around the cheeks, too. 

“More like twenty, I’d say. Hard to judge without a scale, of course. I’d like to get you on a proper medical one to be precise about it.”

“You’re a fine one to talk. I expect you’ve put on more than I have.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Truth be told, John rather fancied the way the pair of them looked right now. It felt normal, in a way, as though this was what they might look like if they didn’t spend half their lives charging across London. Almost without noticing, he placed his other hand on Sherlock so as to encircle his flatmate’s waist; the man was radiating warmth and fullness.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe, possibly, this isn’t such a bad thing? You look nice this way.”

“We’re talking about me, John. I’m not this sort of person. I’m simply not.”

“It’s alright. When we got here you were perpetually shivering and wrapped up in your Belstaff all the time. You haven’t done that for days. It’s doing you good.”

“Are you saying…you find me attractive this way?”

John put on his best bemused expression, the one he used for eyeballs in the refrigerator and that sort of thing. “I’m standing here staring at you, squeezing your arse and that gorgeous tummy of yours. What do you deduce about that, great detective?”

“I…I wouldn’t have thought…I mean, I did tell you, I’ve got my work…you seemed to like your girlfriends…”

John steered him over to the four-poster, quite firmly.

“Sherlock, I love everything about you, including the part about you being a blabbermouth, but do you think you could pipe down for the next hour or so? Use your mouth for other things right now?”

Remarkably, Sherlock shut up.

 

“So you’re together now, finally,” Violet commented to Sherlock at the table; they were waiting for the other two to bring in a celebratory breakfast. “About time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Smiles. The way John can’t stop giggling. Copious smell of lard. So, Sherlock, did you ever figure out the scam?”

“No. I don’t think there was one. You’ve made the entire thing up. I don’t believe there was any motive at all.”

Violet smiled sweetly and handed Sherlock a bill. The man whistled.

“The sum for lodging, I can understand, but…the board? Did John and I really eat that much?”

“Full-blown Victorian courses for every meal? Yes, a lot of it. My aunt and I are really very grateful, you know. It’s been a few years since we’ve been able to lay out a sum for a full-scale feast like that. Of course, we had to lay in extra in case there was an emergency, such as we had, so it’s a good thing we had a lot.”

“You played on my curiosity, teased me with hints and red herrings, had me investigate the countryside for miles around just to extract an outrageous hotel bill from us?”

“Quite so. Tripled by three, as you see at the bottom. Since you didn’t work out what the point of your week in the country was…”

“Never mind the London invitation,” Sherlock said. “I’ve changed my mind. You’re too dangerous to be let loose on an unsuspecting metropolis.”

“I don’t know,” John said mildly, coming in with the fresh-baked bread. “We do owe her something.” He fed a buttered roll into the detective’s mouth. Sherlock quieted down. “For, I don’t know, getting us stuck in here until we had to confront our emotions about each other because there was nothing else to do.” He smiled at Violet. “Thanks for that.”

“Oh, I’m paying. In fact, you’ll have to add a few days more.”

“So…we’re not going back to Baker Street now, then?”

“Don’t be silly, John. In London I’d inevitably be sucked up in another mystery and not have any time to devote solely to you. No, I think a little more time is in order…maybe a week? Something like that.”

“So I’ve taught you to appreciate the countryside after all, then, have I?”

“Don’t push your luck, John. It’s not becoming.”

“Really? I should think that’s exactly what you consider me right now…”

Violet ducked out of the room. Breakfast could be kept warm a little longer.

 

Molly received a text later that day, in the midst of disembowelling a particularly messy corpse. “Have won bet after all, dating Sherlock myself, instead of Violet. Pay up when I’m back in London.”

She smiled and waited. At a certain scheduled time, she dialed a number.

“Hullo, Violet. So it’s worked?”

“Like a charm. John was stuffing him silly with my aunt’s fruitcake when I left. You know, I can’t believe Sherlock swallowed the whole thing. We’ve been snowbound and they’ve been stuck here for much longer than we thought. Had me worried, I thought I was going to have to admit the joke.”

Molly sighed happily. “Well, congratulations for succeeding. It only took exiling him from London, a secret conspiracy and a faked mystery to finally get Sherlock paired up with someone. We’re taking up a collection for you at Scotland Yard.”

“That’s really not necessary…”

“No, really, you have no idea how much easier it’s going to be for the rest of us from now on, with Sherlock having someone to burn off all that excess energy of his with. Lestrade’s been hoping he’d find a boyfriend for years.”

Violet thanked her, hung up and replaced the mobile in the geocache box where Molly had hidden it on her visit here. So much smaller than the bricks they’d been when she’d last been in London. Amazing how technology had come along the last few years. 

And a little extra money wouldn’t hurt. With Sherlock’s triple bill, she and her aunt of them would be able to expand the pub a bit. Expand the cellar a little more, set up some equipment for brewing. And there’d be plenty of leftover food for Christmas. It was nice that her aunt had been able to let loose and cook absolutely everything she’d ever wanted to for a change.

She paused as she made it down the hill, noticing that the new couple had moved to the bedroom and forgotten to draw the shutters. Sherlock was lying on the bed, full and round. John straddled him, with a bowl of tiny currant buns besides him. He was apparently feeding them one by one into his lover’s mouth.

Violet chuckled and walked round to the kitchen window, to warn her aunt that she’d better prepare their visitors an extra-big tea for later. She had a feeling they’d be wanting it.

**Author's Note:**

> Right. So the prompt needed original characters, and good ones, and from there the setup built itself up. An isolated house, so that I wouldn’t have to handle more than two people plus my leads, a snowstorm to get the two of them investigating anything in one spot long enough to eat up; I was somewhat daunted by the prospect of my first OCs. I bethought myself of Conan Doyle’s taste for women named Violet (and John’s hope of setting Sherlock up with same, which gave me the subplot), decided I felt like writing about a feast of fat things from the nineteenth century (there is so much scope for imagination in old Victorian cookery books) and from there proceeded to work out the logic of the tale based around these two basic premises. If you’re going to have a supposed crime away in the back of beyond with only two suspects, how can this be made suspenseful and what can the crime even be? Turn the problem on its head and make that the starting point. A great deal of what I do is just coming up with a decent plot hook for a story and working out all the necessary implications from there. I actually mapped out the general geography, so that I’d know exactly where everyone was in relation to everywhere as and when I needed to make reference to that and stay internally consistent. 
> 
> You also have to not be afraid of rethinking a story when it’s going wrong – I spent the longest time trying to work out how Violet or her aunt would actually have committed a crime, maybe by being a smuggler (I was almost thinking of doing a Cabin Pressure crossover despite not having even listened to that programme), but it simply didn’t work. And then there’s an entire nightmare scene that was just unnecessary, though it was a decent bit of writing. Out it went.
> 
> The Agatha Christie reference is simply a first line from “The Sittaford Mystery” (which is itself a homage to Sherlock Holmes). Having read it not long since, it was the background of my mind anyway, revolving as it does around isolation and snow. Sherlock’s dialogue re: countryside was taken wholesale from the memorable Granada adaptations, in which Jeremey Brett is Not Enjoying his trip, and indeed Violet’s surname is a tip-off that I was using “The Musgrave Ritual” to shape the most general outline of the tale (old university friend invites Sherlock to his tremendous country house). Though the case that Violet and Sherlock solved at university is a tip of the hat to Kim Newman’s “The Hound of the D’Urbervilles” (which is to be commended for making something almost amusing out of Thomas Hardy’s grim original, but that’s neither here nor there). I haven’t yet put together another story for Violet but she is going to show up again, in “Until the Winds Change” if I can work out a way for it to happen. Her aunt’s not so successful, being entirely too much like Mrs Hudson for all practical purposes, but it was a try. I enjoyed writing Molly, too; her characterisation is interesting to handle. 
> 
> I think that for sheer Fatlock indulgence in my stories, this one has to take the cake. “Copious smell of lard” is a phrase that still tickles me. And in retrospect, this is where my ficcing started coming together properly. A good many of the themes I used here will show up again more vividly later.


End file.
